Ring Ring

When the phone rings, it could mean a number of things. For instance, it could be a "Congratulations! You've won a thousand dollars and a lawn mower!" kind of call, or a "Turn on Channel 9. I'm on TV!" kind of call, or it could be a "Hello? Pizza Hut? Oh. Sorry. Wrong number." kind of call. It could also be a rather less welcome kind of call involving, say, the police, or worse, your angry boy/girlfriend. But we won't get into that, lest we tempt fate.

Yes, there are many possible outcomes when the telephone interrupts your daily life by ringing itself silly.

In fact you could say - as people so foolishly, yet so insistently do - anything's possible. Except, of course, for the unavoidable fact that some things, due to the very reasonable laws of science and, more importantly, plain logic, are just not possible.*

So when young Evelyn Phillips picked up the telephone one sunny Sunday morning, she expected something that was, by said laws, entirely possible. She thought it was most probably her mother, out to the market with her father, calling to tell her (again) not to let the washing get rained on and to water the daisies. This is a very possible kind of call.

What she got, though, was quite completely the opposite.

"Hello?" she said into the mouthpiece, waiting for her mother's voice to answer. But it did not. In fact, there was no voice answering at all.

Now, this in itself is not impossible at all, because sometimes, for reasons unfathomable, people call people and say nothing at all. Maybe they mean to pull a rather weak prank, or accidentally dialed the wrong number. Even so, you'd think they'd have the decency and ever so little amount of intelligence required to say so instead of irritating the person on the other end with ten seconds of silence before hanging up.

Evelyn was just about to put down the phone, frowning, when - and now we get to the impossible bit - it started to smoke. And not just any smoke either. It was purple, tinged with the slightest shade of pink, and smelled of blueberries.

The long tendrils of purple-pink smoke curled into the air, filling the room with its sweet scent. Strangely, the smoke didn't spread throughout the whole room, but seemed to be collecting itself into one thick cloud. Then the cloud started changing sHapE. It began to look like a snowman, or rather a smokeman. It even started to change colour in places and began to look more solid...

Evelyn dropped the receiver (which didn't affect the smoke at all) and stared, and stared, and stared.

The smoke had turned itself into a boy!

The smoke-child looked down at Evelyn, smiled hesitantly and said, "Would you like three wishes?"


* Unless you just happen to be a certain purple dinosaur or creatures of similar naivety with overly cheerful optimism (and rather creepy eyes, come to think of it) then maybe - just maybe - anything could be possible. Even purple dinosaurs.

Insomnia

Some stuff before I go spend the day at Sunway Lagoon.

1. I am currently addicted to Wheesung's cover of Insomnia. It is love.
   
   Original Craig David version:
   
   
   
2. The word stuck in my head today is 'discretion'.
3. I cry with each episode of Grey's Anatomy.
4. The melting point of glass is 1400 degree Celsius. I learned this from Mythbusters. :)
   

The Climb

On Saturday I went to OU with Dan, Cams, Lisa and some of Lisa's friends and their sisters to watch:


Dan: I can't believe we're watching Hannah Montana.
me: We watched High School Musical.

So what is there to be surprised about?

Surprisingly, the movie wasn't all that bad. I mean, it was all the cliche that is the status quo of Disney movies, but it was definitely better than High School Musical 3. It exceeded my expectations. Well. That's mostly because I didn't have much expectations in the first place. But in my opinion, having no expectations is wise, since that way, you can't really be disappointed, and you can always be surprised. :)

PLUS the character Travis Brody (played by Lucas Till) is totally cute, haha. Dan, Lisa and I were all MELT-MELT-MELT for him. See him for yourself:

So yummy. :D

I slept over at Dan's that night.

Papa H told us some ghost stories (that may or may not be true; you can never tell with Uncle Wan) at dinner, Armand kicked me in the side of the head because I was lying on the floor instead of playing with him, and Dan and I watched 4 episodes of D.Gray-Man before going to sleep.

The next day, we woke up early and headed to Uncle Zak's to go hiking. The party consisted of Uncle Zak, Auntie Tia, Anji, Ain, Amir, Acap, Nana, Syida, Syaz, Lisa, Dan and I. The little kids stayed at Uncle Zak's apartment while we set out for Bukit Gasing.

First we had to walk to Bukit Gasing. That itself made us quite tired, but we made it. Uncle Zak pointed out Bukit Gasing to us...

Dan: OMG we're gonna go into the big green mush??? I've always wondered what it looks like inside!
U.Zak: Big green mush???

Haha.

Pictures courtesy of Hercules. :)

"We're the Mohameds! And extension." -Dan

FIRST LEG. Destination: Observation Tower

First pit stop: The Gazebo.

Anji is passing around MnMs. Uncle Zak told us to bring chocolate for energy, but I don't really think MnMs help much.

Uncle Zak. Our tour guide and slave driver. Haha.

We've reached destination Observation Tower!

This is the view from the top of the tower. PJ lies behind that rise at the back, but we didn't go that far.
Something else we saw from up there was an old man wearing a pink thong.

The adults didn't come up.

Nana came up with the movie catchphrase: "One wrong turn, and it ain't funny no more" so we took this picture showing us taking the Wrong Turn. :)

Okay, so we failed to look scared, but we had fun.

Mmm, I love this pic. :)

Another Wrong Turn pic. x3 Dan, too, fails to look convincingly scared.

Second pit stop: the Broken Signboard.

We were too tired to group together for a proper picture.

Yet Nana keeps posing...

LOL Nana, you ni memang tak boleh blah lah.

Uncle Zak, unfazed and looking amused by our fatigue. He hikes, cycles, jogs, dives.....

Back at the starting point, we block off the exit path.

us: *points to wrong path* Exit path that way...
random passer-by: No it's not. That's the wrong way, isn't it?
me: Sssssh!

The mommas decided to seperate with the group while the rest of us went on.

SECOND LEG. Destination: Suspension Bridge
Not suspended bridge.

I think this is another part of Wrong Turn, where we find something "amazing" in the forest. Jungle. In the trees.

And this is what we were pointing at. Nothing.

They don't look that tough to climb, but when you've been walking uphill and downhill for more than an hour, things can get pretty difficult.

And then we were out! Back into the open sunshine.

It. Was. Great.

We hiked for approximately two hours, and we were glad to be back at Uncle Zak's apartment, welcomed by nasi lemak, nasi goreng, mee hun, cucur bawang, sandwiches and, most importantly, ice-cold refreshments.

And AFTER that, we played tennis! Well, Dan and I didn't, but the other teens did.

Somehow, Syida missed the ball and still managed to knock the racket out of her hand. Somehow.

Lisa, the ball is in your hand. What are you looking back for?

Nana, being so the drama.

It's like he's doing some sort of hip-hop dance...

Acap and Amir against Syaz.

And AFTER tennis, we swam. It felt great to be in the pool after sweating our asses off hiking. Uncle Zak and the little kids were the first ones in, followed by Dan and I, then Amir and Acap, then Lisa and Nana, and finally Syaz, who we kindly pulled in. :)

And AFTER that, we just chilled, eating pizza and watching The Goonies. Needless to say, some of us fell asleep.





As is the case most of the time I'm with my family, I had an absolute blast, and I'd love to do it again someday.

me: I better get muscles...
Dan: I'm gonna get muscle pains.

I think it's pretty safe to say we all woke up with muscle pains the next day. Making my way around uni yesterday was torture. My ass hurt, my legs hurt, and my right shoulder feels like it's bruised, probably because I'd been carrying Sarah on my shoulders in the pool, and she's not one to stay still.

But it's all in the name of fun (and much-needed exercise) so what the heck! What matters is the climb. :)